Arc Loves You For You

Eliminating Social Inequalities

Watch Our Documentary

Our objective is to lead our industry to make recruitment and staffing fairer for all.

Our Diversity & Inclusion Promise To You 

Diversity and inclusion is important to Arc for many reasons. It goes without saying that D&I is morally the right thing for any company, and individual, to think about and action. We want to earn the trust and commitment of our Employees, Team Members, Clients and Suppliers by being ethical leaders in our industry and being a company that is inclusive of everyone in the Arc team.

A diverse company means nothing if it is not an inclusive company. It is vital we are a safe employer in which all of our Employees and casual Team Members feel heard, welcome and valued. Arc loves you for you – and we really mean that. We want everyone at Arc to come as they are and know they will be welcomed, accepted, heard and defended at all costs.  

As a company, it is important that we not only have a diverse office team that reflects our casual Team Members but also reflects our market and society. This encourages a more positive workplace, a better and deeper understanding of the market and our stakeholders, as well as opening doors to untapped talent, knowledge, experience and innovation. Without this, we as a company cannot grow to the levels we strive to achieve. We can make a huge impact on our industry by challenging traditional archaic views and leading by example to enact change in society.  

It’s important that our Employees, Team Members, Clients and suppliers share our values and together, we look to continue to educate and get comfortable with the uncomfortable. This will both empower us and our Team Members. Together, we can make a difference. 

We Are on A Journey, And There Is Still More to Do…

It is important to note – we are not perfect, and we know that. We are learning, educating and trying to do better. We know there is a lot to learn, unpick and change – not just looking at ourselves, but our industry too. Are we going to make mistakes along the way? Of course, we are!  Are we going to learn from our mistakes? Yes, absolutely!! 

Never underestimate the power of the individual. Collectively, we are unstoppable. 

What & How

We are creating an inclusive and diverse work environment at Arc through a series of initiatives: 

  • Educating our employees on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) – first with Be Inclusive Hospitality where we covered Introduction to Bias, and then we continued the training with Your D+I, covering Introduction to DE&I, and Inclusive Language at the Workplace 
  • Working in partnership with Your D+I to audit our internal recruitment processes for diversity & inclusion  
  • Providing Safe Spaces to our full-time employees. This is an internal initiative where our employees can come and chat with one of our Mental Health First Aid trained Safe Spaces Officers 
  • Continuing the conversation about diversity and inclusion. We pledged to continue the DE&I conversation throughout the year, and we do this by celebrating diversity days, such as IWD, but also by launching our Diversity Brekky Club where employees research a DE&I topic and present their findings to the team, educating them while munching on delicious breakfast. We are keen to celebrate the diversity of our team members, and we are working with Your D+I to create a bespoke diversity calendar to celebrate specific dates relevant to our team throughout the year 
  • Updating our zero-tolerance policy for harassment, bullying, or discrimination of any kind and making it a public statement 

To make sure you can reach us with any welfare issue, we have a dedicated Arc person to report any grievances to. They can be made to our Head of Commercial, Courtney Wakes or our  Inclusion Officer, Sarah King, who is championing inclusion practices across the office and can help you with any diversity issues.

“I think it’s really great that Arc pay attention to diversity and inclusion as I have worked for various agencies and they’ve never really spoke much about it before. I work with people from all walks of life so it’s nice to know they are being cared for”

Team Member Review 

See Something? Say Something…

We have built a culture upon transparency and honesty which is why we want all of our team members to feel empowered to say something if they feel that it isn’t right.

Whether that be with someone’s behaviour or words, we stand strong against any form of discrimination. However, we understand that it can be an awkward situation to approach, here are some phrases that you can use to address inappropriate behaviour:

  • “That’s not how we do things here”
  • “Jokes about racism, sexuality, gender or disability are never ok”
  • “That makes me uneasy”

Why do you think it’s important for Arc to focus on DE&I?

“Focusing on DE&I will not only boost productivity but should also improve how attractive we are as a business to potential employees and how happy current employees are in the workplace.

“It’s also the right thing to do. No one should ever feel less happy, included, or respected in the workplace because of who they are.”

Michael Gavin, Director of Arc

“For me, working for a company which cares about it’s people and including everyone, is so important. I’ve seen it before where managers see people as a number and it has a serious impact on motivation”

Team Member Review

Why Arc Loves You For You…

At Arc, we’re big on accepting people for who they are and believe that nobody should feel that they must change who they are to be accepted by others. In a society which can be unkind and judgemental, it takes a great amount of courage to be confident and proud of the person you are.

“To our full-time team in each of our hubs and the thousands of team members who work at events throughout the year, we promise to value you for who you are.”

Michael Gavin & Paul Marcinkowski, Directors of Arc

Yoko Ono once said “You change the world by being yourself” and we have built our Social Inequalities Pillar on this philosophy, we truly believe that we can make a real change in the industry by living and breathing this principle.

Our open culture and friendly workforce means that our team members are comfortable with discussing any issues that they may have, allowing us to take further steps towards eliminating social inequalities.

When you join Arc, you are joining a positive movement that is devoted to making positive changes to a vital industry that plays a huge part in so many people’s lives.

 

Library

Black History Month – Used To It, A Documentary 

A short documentary in which Arc discusses with five of their Team Members their experiences of racism in the UK and in the workplace, specifically, the hospitality industry. An eye-opening insight into the lives of black people living within the UK and a wake-up call that there is still much work to do in the combat against social inequalities.

Resources

We are working on developing our own Arc resources specifically for the needs of our Team. In the meantime, here are some useful resources and social media accounts that we recommend having a look over:

The Mix charity – https://www.themix.org.uk/ Essential support for under 25s 

Your D+I – https://www.yourdandi.co.uk/ – Resources: Diversity & Inclusion Resources | Pronoun Particulars | The A to T of LGBT+ | Diversity & Inclusion Hub 

 Social media accounts: @_LanguageMatters @EverydayRacism_